REGION: Life at the DMV frustrates everyone

As cuts in state budgets and services extend to another year,
perhaps the most visible examples of the resulting challenges and
frustrations are found at the Department of Motor Vehicles.

For many, a visit to the DMV evokes an image of long lines,
harried clerks and a sheaf of paperwork often missing a key
document.

And since July, when DMV office closures on the first three
Fridays of the month became the norm, lines of people waiting for
the doors to open can be twice what they were pre-furloughs.

Thursdays early in the month often were lightly visited days at
the DMV; no more, officers and workers agree.

Meanwhile, staffing is diminished.

In the last decade, for example, even as the number of driver's
licenses issued has risen by 15 percent, DMV staffing has fallen by
3 percent, officials said.

"You know when you're going to go to the DMV that you're going
to spend some time," said Heather Green of Valley Center, waiting
in line last week at the Escondido office to get her vehicle
registration tags.

Green was among about 90 percent of the people who visit the
Escondido office without making an appointment, which would give
them a precise time to appear.

DMV officials said that on average, it deals with customers who
have appointments within 14 minutes of their assigned time.

The wait time for people without appointments can stretch to two
hours.

The department's experience illustrates how the tentacles of the
recession and quirks of human behavior extend into every arena of
life.

So why don't people make appointments? And if they do, why do
one-third of the people fail to show for them?

"People are increasingly unwilling to commit themselves to
anything," said Nicholas Christenfeld, psychology professor at UC
San Diego. "Now any commitment can be changed at any moment. People
commit provisionally ---- 'I'll call you on my cell phone when I'm
on the way.'"

Such commitment procrastination is an ancient tendency, he said,
made easier by technology.

A text message at the last moment can cancel that provisional
commitment, he said.

Even at the DMV offices with the highest appointment rates, the
figure ranges to 40 percent. Most people opt to walk in and
wait.

Referring people online and to other places, such as the
American Automobile Association, has helped some, DMV officials
said.

Bypassing the DMV

In Escondido, people can take care of most DMV business at 11
alternate sites, such as Barb's Auto Registration, which estimates
that its business is up 20 percent since the DMV began closing most
Fridays.

Customers pay a service fee for Barb's to handle their paperwork
---- $35 for a vehicle transfer, for example ---- and that extra
money is a deterrent to many these days.

"People are holding onto their dollars until the last possible
day," said Tina Diaz, who has worked at the DMV for 14 years.

More and more people also are letting their car insurance lapse,
she said, and that pops up in the DMV computer, halting any
transactions until the driver gets a policy.

And "every day, all day," people ask for reductions on late fees
and penalties, she said.

The response is the same: The DMV can't alter the fees.

"Sometimes people's situations hurt your heart," she said. "I
care about their circumstances, but I can only give them the
facts."

It hurts on the other side of the counter, too.

"It's getting more and more difficult," said Gloria Rivera,
regional supervisor for 19 DMV offices from Riverside and Orange
counties to the Mexican border. "We absolutely cannot continue to
operate like this. These employees are at their limit."

With the furloughs, all 44 employees at the Escondido office
---- and their counterparts around the state ---- have taken about
a 14 percent pay cut.

On June 30, 2010, state furloughs are scheduled to end, but no
one expects California's financial footing to be sound by then.

And most economists predict a slow recovery.

On Wednesday mornings, DMV offices around the state open an hour
later because all staffers are in class, learning about new
procedures and systems ---- and increasingly these days, how to
deal with angry, stressed or pleading people.

Rivera said the department urges employees to help find
efficiencies in the system.

One such recent change: Customers registering salvaged vehicles
now have 60 days ---- twice the time they had previously ---- to
get the inspections they need to certify a vehicle as roadworthy
again.

Long lines, unrelenting

At a computer in the center of the room, office manager Aurora
Navarro-Grace can look at a screen and tell to the second how long
each customer has been at each window.

The pace is relentless: As a customer service representative is
printing the documentation for one person, the computer system is
sending the next one to that window.

Each customer service representative handles about 100
transactions a day; on average, the Escondido office serves about
900 people daily.

The Oceanside office is bigger and busier, serving about 1,100
customers a day; the Temecula office is smaller, serving about 600
a day.

Only a slowing of Temecula's explosive growth, though, has kept
that office from bursting, DMV officials said.

At all DMV offices, some people are served twice, adding to the
congestion.

Juan Galvan, a carpenter who lives in Escondido, waited in line
Wednesday at the Escondido DMV to register his car, not realizing
he needed to get a smog certificate.

He then took his car to a garage to get the certificate,
returned to the DMV, and waited for 90 more minutes to get the
registration.